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A Battlestar Galactica Review

I’ve just recently finished a sci-fi TV series and I have to say that I feel compelled to share with you my experience of it, just for the purpose of sharing. The series in question it “Battlestar Galactica” and I must say, it just might be one of the best, if not THE best program I ever saw!

The original idea of “Battlestar Galactica” came in 1978 with the success of the Star Wars trilogy. It did have a cult followers but due to lack of funds, poor writing and bad time slots it didn’t survive for long. It wasn’t until in 2003 when it was decided to reimagine the whole thing that things started to escalate, with new screen writers, new cast and sufficient funds, and that’s the “Battlestar Galactica” I want to talk about.

Starting with a 2 hour long miniseries as a pilot, it became so successful it was decided to turn it into a full multi-episode TV series, and thank God, Lords of Kobol or whoever for that.

The main plot is the war between the human race of the 12 Colonies (each colony a planet , interestingly named after each of the 12 Zodiac signs) and Cylons, Cylons being a race of robots, originally made by humans, to work for them as slaves and soldiers. The robots became sentient and rebelled and left the Colonies. For 40 years a truce lingered but the Cylons came back, highly evolved, and destroyed all 12 Colonies leaving only around 50.000 human survivors who got away in spaceships, lead by an old Battlestar class ship, “Galactica”. The series then revolves around this struggle between human and machine and the everlasting search for a new planet to call home.

What makes this show so good in my opinion, and surely, made it so popular, is that it also speaks to the “main-stream” “non-genre” audience. Sure it happens in space on spaceships, but there are no aliens to speak of, only the Cylon robots, that were made by humans in the first place. Also the amazing script and actors that populate the show, the emotions, betrayals, political struggle, the most interesting ideas about love and religion (the population of the 12 Colonies believe in the gods of Greek Mythology while some Cylons believe in the one and only God), and the brainteasing twists, make this show so much more than a simple science fiction.

With state-of-the-art special effects, beautiful filming, breathtaking storyline and a killer soundtrack, this show, I believe, will have something to offer to anyone who is into drama, excitement and challenging, intellectual storylines that will keep you on the edge of your seat, making you crave for more.

The program spans 4 series, of a total of 75 episodes (including the 2 hour/2 episode miniseries) with extra 2 TV movies, “Razor”, which served as a bridge in the middle of 4 season, where it went on a 7 month hiatus because of the 2007-08 Writer’s Guild strike, and then “The Plan”, premiered in October 2009 which is supposed to happen before the attack on the 12 Colonies, mainly seen from the viewpoint of two Cylons.

So, for people who haven’t seen this, I strongly recommend watching, and try to do so in the correct order, it may be weird watching a movie in the middle of the fourth season but it works both as a recap and as a story filler because in the world of “Battlestar Galactica” there is just so much story!

And as the final episode is concerned……I guarantee it will absolutely blow your mind!!

And one last thing. The soundtrack could make a person cry, the haunting melodies of oriental strings and flutes, the beat of tribal drums, the magnificence of military bag pipes combined with female voices singing in an exotic language and a little rock and roll, it is the delicious rich frosting on the cake that is the “Battlestar Galactica”, adding to the emotional rollercoaster this show really is.